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pianokantzart · 1 year

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YES! GOOD! I’m going to just going to analyze the whole dinner scene, because it’s one of my favorite parts of the movie.

Mario and Luigi walk in, and immediately the whole room lights up to greet them. Despite everything that follows, one thing is clear: The Mario Brothers are happy to see their family, and the family is happy to see them.

The whole family confirms that they watched their commercial. Everyone except their mom insists the commercial was a bad idea, but the fact that they all watched it speaks to the fact that there is no indifference regarding Mario and Luigi’s dream. They’re eager to see where this endeavor leads, even if they think it’s going to end in failure.

The moment Mario and Luigi sit down at the table, their uncles begin laying into them like it’s open season on financially struggling plumbers. Just full blown, no-holds-barred roast mode on their nephews.

Mario is on the defensive, but he doesn’t get angry, he’s just trying to argue his side. Clearly this is typical behavior for Uncle Tony and Uncle Arthur. They’re loud, overly honest, and obnoxiously confident in their opinions. Uncle Arthur, thankfully, has his wife to keep him in check. Uncle Tony, however, who is seated next to poor Luigi, is an absolute menace.

Luigi ignores all the teasing. He is only interested in getting food, but this is not an easy task. Tony’s verbal arguments are all directed at Mario, but Luigi is the one who gets prodded and shoved around, and that makes getting dinner next to impossible.

Luigi attempts to serve himself salad, attempts to ask for a roll, attempts to eat the mushrooms being put on his plate, and at every turn he’s either pushed away or talked over. He is clearly very soft spoken compared to the other men in his family, and never quite had the strength to stand up for himself... after all, everyone means well, they just lack self awareness. It isn’t worth the fight.

Thankfully, Luigi’s mom comes to the rescue, and puts a bowl of soup in front of her boy. She’s the queen of the caretaker role, making sure all the loose ends are tied up and that everybody eats.

But on the flip side, it’s interesting to note that once the uncles start tearing into Mario, Mario’s Dad serves him up a plate of food. He may have just been serving the person next to him because that was the polite thing to do, but I have a theory...

I think that this wasn’t the first night that Mario and his uncles went at each other. I think Mario’s Dad read the room, and figured that if Mario was going to spend dinner playing defense, he should at least remember to eat while doing so.

It also speaks volumes that Mario’s Dad doesn’t voice his disapproval until Mario asks for his opinion. Before then he avoids the subject and lets everyone else do the talking, but so long as he’s being questioned directly, he can’t help but be honest.

“I think... you’re nuts. You don’t quit a steady job for some crazy dream.” This sounds like a voice of experience. Mario’s Dad has the figure of someone who has worked physical labor for a good portion of his life (look the size of those arms). He may have had dreams of his own when he was younger, but he had a wife and kids to worry about, and family took priority.

Speaking of family taking priority: “... and the worst part? You’re bringing your brother down with you.” That settles it. The conversation has gone from a casual roast session to dead serious. The entire room falls quiet as Mario puts down his fork and storms off.

“What’d I say?” Everybody at the table (except the niece, she’s long since checked out) gives Mario’s Dad different versions of the look™. Uncle Tony and Uncle Arthur have the same “Jesus Christ bro, you didn’t have to go there” expression, and Luigi just looks hurt on Mario’s behalf. His Dad, however, is just confused.

He didn’t get the gravity of what he said. His relationship with his own brothers– loudmouthed schmucks who call their own shots – is completely alien to what Luigi and Mario have. He probably knows Mario is protective of Luigi, but he doesn’t realize the depth of responsibility Mario feels for him. Anyone can see that Luigi is loyal to his brother, but Mario alone knows how loyal he is, and the implication that he’s betraying that loyalty is intensely painful.

I doubt Uncle Arthur and Uncle Tony truly relate to Mario and Luigi’s relationship either, but they’ve probably teased Mario enough to understand one thing: bringing Luigi into it is a line you do not cross.

Conclusion:

There is a lot of love in the Mario family.

Uncle Tony and Uncle Arthur are definitely the most insufferable of the bunch, but there is no malice in their teasing. While they are brash and overbearing, it’s all in good fun, and they get visibly uncomfortable when things go too far and someone actually ends up hurt.

Luigi seems to take after his mother; kind, nonconfrontational, and happily invested in a supporting role. While his Mom cares for and assists the family, Luigi cares for and assists his brother, both emotionally and in his business ventures.

Mario, in the meantime, takes after his Dad, who appears to be the oldest of the three brothers. He doesn’t always think before speaking, but he isn’t constantly running his mouth like Arthur or Tony, and acts with the gravity of someone who bears a lot of responsibility. He doesn’t quite “get” his sons, but he knows enough to see that Luigi follows his brother everywhere, and Mario does not always think before jumping into things. Despite what Mario may believe, his Dad doesn’t see him as a “joke” so much as he sees him as an impulsive young man who doesn’t grasp the consequences of his actions. But Mario does understand the consequences of his actions, he just dreams big, and... thanks to Luigi... actually has the support he needs to pursue those dreams.

#mario movie #mario movie spoilers #super mario brothers movie #Luigi #Mario #Not Art #mario commentary #This got a lot longer than I thought it would #There were a lot of thoughts #Super Mario Brothers #Long Post

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tangymac · 10 days

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i think something i adore abt geode / lostshipping as a whole is just how much they could be a parallel to lou / lilly as a couple. especially in the quest for lost powers! what i love about geode & the finders is that it’s always been inevitable to Me that cole would get a family of his own with someone to love nd raise kids with his whole heart, you can spot it all over his writing and how his parents raised him.

in the quest for the lost powers we get a moment between lou and cole where he tells him about his past concerns of his worth when it came to what he meant to lilly, and if he really brought anything to the table for her if he wasn’t directly helping in battle and such. i re read it recently and there is just an undeniable familiarity to the first time we’re introduced to geo in TLoLT. he keeps the secret about cole s rock form in fear of cole Leaving him if he didn’t need him for something like a power boost. lou worries that he may not be enough for lilly unless he had powers. it’s a Heartwrenching parallel in my eyes ..

it isn’t until lilly returns home, worried out of her mind, that lou realizes that lilly needs him just as much as he needs her because they keep each other grounded. their FAMILY keeps them all grounded and if that isn’t just the Biggest premise of the finders then i don’t know what the fuck is! the finders have each other when no one else wanted them and it’s each other that allows them to never feel lost or forgotten again. geo shouldn’t need to worry about his self worth because cole doesn’t care about how powerful he is or if he can help him in battle, what he cares about is making sure geo and the other finders are SAFE. he wants to be there for them as long as they’ll have him OUGH I LOVE THEM. i enevr would’ve thought lou and geo would parallel in this way but it ties up everything into a nice little bow . Geode are perfect for each other in ways People do not Comprehend

(tldr this section of cole s chapter is something i can vividly hear geo saying, cole s entire storyline when it comes to family and geo s abandonment issues align like no other ship for me)

#lostshipping #geodeshipping #ninjago #dragons rising #ninjago cole #ninjago geo

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mapoeggplant · 1 month

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skip to loafer and the "i love you as a person" message

skip to loafer general spoilers

one thing that i'll always be very grateful of skip to loafer is really how they highlight so much the "i love you as a person" mindset — and how that is present in all the narrative, not only on shima and mitsumi's relationship.

this is not only important for the story's target audience, but it also opens the door to a discussion about the value of platonic relationships, which are often "denied" because they are not as "important" as romantic love. and this happens not only when mistumi tells shima that she will like him no matter what happens or who he is — the message spreads to other characters as well.

one of the examples i love most is the moment mika confesses to shima. throughout the chapter, all of her insecurities are exposed and she tirelessly hurt herself saying things like how she doesn't deserve to have someone who likes her in any way (a reflection of the way she was treated throughout her adolescence). this dissolves when shima refuses to throw away the valentine's gift she made especially for him and thanks her for all the care she took with it — an affirmation that her hard work has been recognized and appreciated. this shows mika that she is a person who deserves love and to be valued. for the first time, mika understands that she is being seen as a person, as someone who deserves to be treated well and be recognized.

i know that many people must be thinking that there was an intention for a romantic development in this scene and yes, i agree. after all, mika went to him to confess her feelings. but the way in which the scene was handled makes me think that being seen as a valid person to have feelings was worth much more to her than having her romantic feelings reciprocated — and this, in my opinion, comes back to prominence in chapter 54, when nao, once again, recognizes her pain and connects with it (the appreciation of the "self" when you find someone who understands where you’re hurt).

(...)

(this part wasn't included on the original analysis, but later on I decided to add:

oh my god i was so focused on some very specific scenes for mika that this one slipped my mind and i feel so bad for that! this moment is one of the most important for mika’s development and it also highlight the first time she was seen as a person (by no other than nao). since that day, mika holds nao to a very important place in her heart. i feel that she, at that time, said exactly what mika needed to hear to feel validated and to feel comfortable enough to just go back and spend the night with the girls. if it wasn’t for nao at that time, mika would probably go home and regret ever making this decision — and this ties directly to chapter 54.)

(...)

the second character i want to talk about is yuzuki and all the times he had his identity erased thanks to other people's selfishness.

since the opening of chapter 38, yuzuki talks about how she was always seen as someone whose time was numbered: there was a countdown until the day she achieved "true beauty" and began to be an object of desire, no longer a person. this not only happens thanks to the disgusting adult men that surround you, but also thanks to the friends she tried to make in middle school, one of the most important times of a child’s life, phase where they are beginning to recognize themselves as a person.

yuzuki is simply seen as a object of status to the boys in her class, while to the girls, she’s someone who was only interested in "diminishing others with her beauty" — something she never did, but never even had the chance to defend herself.

Thanks to that, yuzu is forced to grow up without having an identity of her own, but one forced on her, causing her to rebel and refuse to open up to new people. she had her feelings denied, being defended only when there was a sexual/romantic interest in the mix and forced to believe that she was being selfish for denying such a privilege of being "spoiled" and "admired" by everyone, all the time.

yuzu gets her chance to be valued as a person when she enters high school and meets mitsumi and the other girls. she is, for the first time, seen as a person, seen as a yuzuki, seen as someone who has the right to impose herself and be selfish, something she has never been able to be before. her feelings are not diminished or seen as "not valid enough” but most importantly: she’s finally heard.

and then, i think we have one of the most important “i love you like a person” moment: the breakup chapter. chapter 46 is a huge twist to skip to loafer’s romantic narrative, which i myself appreciate a lot. kind of a personal twist here, but it’s a breath of fresh air for someone like me, a demi girl, who always had a little trouble with understanding love when i was their age — and now, basically ten years later, mitsumi’s words not only reached shima, but it also reached me and other thousands of readers who needed to hear something like that.

but well, let’s get back on track. chapter 46 is one of the first times we see shima talking about his past relationship with other people and going a little more in-depth with his relationship with his mom. the core message of it all and the core line that guides all of his personal connections is very simple and highlight why shima have so many trust issues: no one ever saw him as a person, but only as a status object, as someone who was there to be used for their own benefit. shima was used by his mother when she forced him to keep on acting, was used by his peers in a situation a little similar with yuzuki (ofc not completely equal, because we need to remember that gender roles also have a huge influence on how both stories developed (see ririka, for exemple. i have a whole thread on her as well, but this is another topic), when both felt like they were nothing but puppets to the ones around him.

when shima is sitting by mitsumi’s side, he starts to wonder if he really deserves all of that, if he really deserves someone like mitsumi near him. he doesn’t understand his feelings as a whole, because he was never given the opportunity to really explore them and try to dissect it all — this is brought up once again on chapter 53, when he starts to discuss with mukai what it means to love someone in a romantic way (and why loving them as a person isn’t enough on society’s eyes).

he’s not, at any point, using mitsumi or making fun of her feelings. imagine if you were never allowed to think for yourself and then, suddenly, you have the freedom to do so. how does one express something they never had? how does one understand what it means to have a feeling, any feeling, if all they ever felt was guilt?

and that’s when the bigger bomb hits the scene: mitsumi, seeing how troubled he is, shows how important he is and how she values him as a person. it might seem silly to a lot of people, but just hearing someone saying “i will always like you as a person, no matter who you end up being” when all you ever heard in your life was how useless you were, makes you whole world crumble on the spot. he was seen, he was heard, he was understood. mitsumi valued him to the point of assuring him that a romantic relationship wasn’t more important than the platonic one they had. isn’t that beautiful?

to finish it off, i think the conversation the girls have on chapter 57 is also extremely important to the narrative and to the overall message. by not wanting the girls to see shima in a terrible light, mitsumi is, once again, putting their relationship as friends above any other romantic relationship they could have. she shows how much she values him and how much he is important to her — she sees shima as a person, not as an object.

and then, makoto comes to picture with a beautiful speech about how loving someone (any kind of love, not one or another) is to hope that they are happy, content, being taking care of and being comfortable with their own feelings. by forcing someone to feel anything you selfish want, you’re not valuing them as a person with their own feelings and insecurities, but only seeing them as a way to satisfy yourself.

of course, i’m not here to defend everyone and say that they never hurt anyone. yes, shima did hurt mitsumi and she still not completely over it, but she’s way worried with losing him as a friend than forcing something out of a relationship that both don’t feel very comfortable with. mitsumi herself is also someone who is slowly understanding her feelings and understanding what it means to love romantically — but never putting the platonic side aside, since there is no right way to love someone.

thank you so much for reading!! i hope i was clear about the points i was trying to bring up, but i'm always open to discussion!!! 💛

#skip to loafer #skip and loafer #iwakura mitsumi #shima sousuke #mika egashira #yuzuki murashige #nao iwakura #me having flashbacks of my own self discovery #this manga is just a gem #i will never get tired of talking about it #duckmetas #skip to loafer spoilers #skip and loafer spoilers #stl spoilers

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paper-mario-wiki · 5 months

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Do you do farm stuff Scout? Or would you like to? Like owning chickens or tending an outdoor garden, that sort of thing?

From ages 7 to 19 I lived on farms, and was made to be an active participant in maintenance and usages of the facilities I don't know why the fuck I'm typing it like this, but I grew up on a farm. I was kinda in charge of everything, but slacked a lot and my brother had to cover for me. That said, I still spent a LOT of time doing chores.

At one point or another I've been responsible for most every farm chore you can really think of. All the basics like raking leaves, milking goats, collecting eggs, feeding chickens- but also the big stuff like moving tons of hay, herding flocks, caring for large animals such as llamas, alpacas, horses, and cows, as well as delivering babies, gutting and plucking fowl (only chickens and turkeys, though I've also cared for ducks and geese), dehoring, hoof cleaning, corpse transportation, crop maintenance, winter ice removal by breaking up frozen water troughs in 10 below weather (thought this was usually circumvented by anticipating the cold and setting up water heaters beforehand), constructing enclosures, slaughtering pigs, and etc etc etc etc etc all that shit. Bunnies snakes mini horses donkeys. All that shit. Farm stuff. Ya know.

Moved away when I went to college and immediately plunged into a mixed-zoning district in the Fushimi district in Kyoto. This was a really good transition from rural living to city living, because mixed zoning districts have blocks dedicated to apartment complexes and family homes right next to blocks of rice fields and ponds, which was behind the 7-Eleven I bought most of my food from.

Now I live in a SHITTY mixed zoning area in SHITTY America where we never stop hearing cars because there's a massive parking lot nearby and constant police sirens, not because the area is particularly dangerous, but because there's like 2 police stations nearby.

My ideal housing goal, which also happens to be my current goal in life, is to reach a slightly more rural version of the Kyoto living situation. The goals are very distinct:

0. I'm editing this one in after the fact to note that while I've used Kyoto as an example a few times in this post, I'm just looking for an area that feels right and would happily live in any prefecture that fits my needs.

I want to not be tied directly to a visa which would draw me away from doing whatever work I really want to do, like my student visa did later on when school started getting worse as professors were struggling to learn digital classroom mechanics. The visa I'm shooting for is dependent on a few ideas I have for businesses, but that's still kind of a long shot.

I want to be in a position of relative financial freedom so that I can spend enough time genuinely living there instead of just being tied to a computer all day, limiting me to the world I already know. This one's the big one, so I'm still workin on that. That said, recently I've been taking some pretty massive steps towards making this a more tangible circumstance. Fingers crossed.

I want to have a home that I own instead of renting, and I'd like to work with a Japanese architect to actually construct it. Again, these are big big plans, but I think a life goal is a thing worth thinking big about. And it's not like I'm trying to build a mansion, or even a family-sized house, I think I'd be content with three bedrooms, a kitchen, and common room. Of course, in keeping with the "dream big" spirit, in a world where I've got enough money to have a nicer, slightly bigger home, I can imagine as many as 5 bedrooms. It's nice to imagine in this "perfect" outcome that I've got a reason to have enough space for guests to sleep over. A local community, or an otherwise tangible, real-world web of relationships would be nice. Like, Real Adult Socializing Shit.

I want to have a significant emphasis on self-reliance on this home. As far solarpunk as I can reasonably go, without biting off more than I can chew as someone who's kinda limp-wristed. In a gay way and a feeble way. I figure this will come down to solar panels, water filtration, a well, and a garden (or at least the space to have gardening stuff like pots and soil). Some chickens would be nice too, but I don't know that I'd ever take on livestock proper.

I want to be properly submerged in trees without being more than a 5 minute bike ride from a train station. Somwhere like Yase-Hieizanguchi Station in north Kyoto is a good example of station that's on the edge of a metropolitan area and the forest. There was an apartment there I almost got, but backed out when covid hit cuz I decided moving across town would be a whack decision.

This is a BONUS goal, but I think it'd also be nice to not compromise on a single location, and instead have a home out in the inaka, while also having a small apartment rented in the city I can go between whenever I need to. In a world where I can afford a plot of land out in the country, but would still need to travel into town for business, that would be nice. Though in that scenario I'd likely need to also take on the arduous task of getting a Japanese drivers license. If I know far enough in advance that I want to take this specific route then I could bypass that last one by getting an international license before moving to Japan, but after moving to Japan you're barred from getting an international license.

I couldn't tell you in honesty that I'm a Salt of the Earth, Red Blooded American Farmer in my heart, and in fact I could not WAIT to move away from the farm. I hated that I didn't have a say in living on a farm, and was made to take care of animals. But what I DID enjoy about that life was the stillness. The opportunities of perfect silence. The stars unobstructed by light pollution. The ability to explore. Those things I was incredibly grateful for. And as such, in my perfect world, I would like to live on something like a farm again one day, just on my own terms.

#anon

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commsroom · 8 months

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memoria is incredibly close to my heart, but when i listen to it now, it's hard not to think about the undertones re: how therapy as an institution handles disability. maxwell's objective was always to help hera get back to work, to find accommodations she could function under, or otherwise to replace her. "i'm sorry you feel like you can't do your job." maxwell presents her solutions in a less hostile framing, but her methods are the same ones cutter threatens hera with in her live show performance review (re: deleting her memories) and it's something she intends to do regardless of hera's consent. maxwell's practice aligns with goddard's interests, and of course it does. there's something about therapy as maintenance, and the treatment of the disabled mind and/or body as a broken machine.

hera is used to being condescended to and taunted for her limitations ("we all have our limits. you can't do what you can't do. it's not your fault.") and that intersects with her trauma ("i can't do this. i'm not good enough.") in a way that inherently ties her self worth to her ability to be useful and perform a job. as a result, she has a gut reaction to and a resistance to anyone suggesting she might not be capable of something, or that she might need help, and that makes her constantly push herself past her limits, causing real damage. the problem is that hera is disabled, there are things she can't do, and she hasn't been given the security or compassion to really come to terms with that. no amount of ways to manage doing her job will really help the core problem; she needs to be able to separate her concept of self worth from her productivity. "we get things wrong, and we get better." is a nice sentiment, but i think it applies more to interpersonal conflict than physical burnout. hera even directly calls back to and casts doubt on that specific line later in the show.

that's why eiffel matters so much to hera. when eiffel says "you can do anything" - he believes that, he has that kind of sincere faith in all of his friends, but he means it even when it's disproven. he's seen her fail. he's seen her make mistakes. it doesn't matter because it isn't about what he expects of her, it's about who she is to him. minkowski is the commander, even when she's not. hera can do anything, even when she can't. eiffel values people, not their jobs. if hera didn't have a supercomputer for a brain, she would still be the same to him; it's who she is and her companionship that he wants. i'm not saying that what maxwell did for hera was useless - it's effective therapy that gave her a clearer understanding of herself, and a framework to understand what's been happening to her; that's extremely valuable. but that alone would not have been enough. what hera thinks of at the end of memoria, what actually pulls her through, is the support and care that eiffel and minkowski continually show to her.

#wolf 359 #w359 #hera wolf 359 #there's a lot you can say about um. doctors. in wolf 359 #while i think the writers are pretty pro-therapy and some of this was probably not directly intentional #there is an awareness of worthiness wrt capitalism and productivity in the show that i think seeps through #even if they didn't mean to critique it in quite that way. it resonates.#this is my life and you don't get to rewrite it to fit what you need...

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lailoken · 23 days

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hi there, i always enjoy reading your posts. i saw an ask you answered about offerings to deceased animal spirits, and am wondering how one is able to tell if an animal's bones are still inhabited (so to speak)

This is a deceptively complex question to answer, and I am not someone who feels comfortable saying I'm certain about much of anything concerning the time after death to begin with. Even so, I can do my best to share personal beliefs and leanings that I've picked up over the years through a mixture of traditional wisdom I grew up with, comparative religious observation, and experiences I've had. But there's too much for me to really get into it here comprehensively, so please keep in mind that this is more of an awkward overview of my views than anything else. I also think I should probably briefly explain my understanding of the soul to begin with.

Based on tradition and gnosis, I view the soul as being essentially tripartite in nature. These three parts are separate, and could even be thought of as multiple souls in some way, and yet, they also make up one broader and more comprehensive spirit. Without getting into that too much, these three aspects serve different roles. There are the Fetch (an aspect that most closely aligns with concepts like the Daemon), the Shade (an aspect that essentially represents a person's self-awareness and sense of identity), and the Spark (what can be thought of as the seed of Divine Will that all living things possess, and which ties them to both each other and to the Divine Wellspring.)

As I learned it, a specter is still directly and physically tied to their bones for three days following death. I believe that this number represents more of an average than a strict and static rule, but it seems worth noting, all the same. During this time, the soul is "just below" the boundary of "physical reality," and the deceased is often sensed, seen, or present in important dreams or omens. After that, the soul generally moves on to the Otherworld, where it proceeds through the Three Realms of the Gloaming and reaches the Quietus (the place where a soul is "embraced by and rejoined with" the Divine Wellspring.) This katabatic process of spiritual purification is traditionally held to last for a year and a day, though, again, I think this is more of a generalized approximation. During this time, the spirit is not as "present," but some might continue to experience periodic visitation or guidance. Following this period, a soul can generally be thought to have "moved on", since the Shade will have mostly dissipated by now (however, so long as there are living individuals invoking the remembrance of someone, some semblence of their Shade will abide.)

As for making offerings to an animal spirit, you can do this even when that spirit has moved on. As I touched on earlier, the paradigm of my tradition holds that a specter may be in multiple "places" after having moved on from its body, but regardless of "where" a spirit is, it remains connected to any body which it has inhabited. For this reason, we can commune with and call on even those specters who are currently rejoined with the Wellspring or reincarnated. As I understand it, the spirit of a deceased creature can only truly be conjured in full if the specter is in the Otherworld (or during those three days immediately following death). However, when a spirit has rejoined with the Wellspring, it can still "self-differentiate" and make itself known when that 'cord of recognition' is pulled on by a living person who upholds remembrance of their living identity. And even when embodied and assimilated into a new ego/consciousness, I believe the part of one's spirit that doesn't fade (the Spark) can "feel the pull" of those who remember a previous incarnation it took, and accordingly reach out unconsciously in some way too—I assume during sleep, for the most part. I realize how confusing and strange that is, and it doesn't help that I struggle to verbalize it, but it's based largely on strong intuitions I've had ever since preschool, which were affirmed and refined for me by other beliefs and experiences I was exposed to over time.

I apologise for what a rambling answer this has proven to be, but I hope it can help some. A very short answer would be that if remains are a year old or less, they should prove rather easier to necromantically ensoul than otherwise. However, offerings can be made to a deceased being, regardless of "where" their soul is in its journey.

#anonymous #ask #soul #bones #necromancy

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melatonin-melanin · 5 months

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menhera as a movement and how it can connect to race

most members of the menhera subculture tend to have one goal in mind, and it's to be able to improve their mental health one way or another. for those unaware, menhera is a mental health movement originating in japan, where the term was originally defined as "someone who seeks mental well being." you can learn more about it here.

a large aspect of the menhera subculture is creating art in order to vent your struggles. this art is expressed most commonly through mediums such as fashion, painting, and music. any topics are acceptable to create vent art from, and often there will be motifs related to the author's trauma. however, over time, menhera has been watered down to containing mainly medical motifs in creations, as opposed to the original intention of being an outlet for a vast majority of issues that people may struggle with. of course, this doesn't mean that people no longer use it to vent; there are still many active members of the community, at least overseas.

you might be thinking, "that's nice to learn about, but what does this have to do with race? isn't this about mental health?"

well, your race can directly impact your mental health in multiple ways. when it comes to race, it's important to keep in mind that it's not just the color of your skin. race, as it is defined in society, is also your hair texture, facial structure, culture, and traditions. race is ultimately a social category, as it is fluctuating throughout history and is solely determined by people in power. think about it: for those growing up in the U.S., did you ever have to fill out forms for mandated tests? do you recall that, as time went on, more and more racial categories were added as options to check off when asked for your race?

with all of these factors taken into account, it's no wonder that race can affect mental health. whether it's from racial discrimination in multiple communities and institutions, cultural-specific struggles, or trying to find one's own place inside and outside of race-based communities, any and all of these issues can be mentally draining and have someone questioning their self-worth. added to all of this, it can be more difficult for someone to receive help for these troubles when they're not surrounded with people who understand. not every person of color is going to understand what a person with a mental illness goes through, and not every person with a mental illness is going to understand what a person of color goes through, either. depending on the people around them, a person of color struggling with mental illness may feel much more hesitant about reaching out to others because of this.

menhera as a movement was created in order for people to express all kinds of feelings without needing any particular label for what they're struggling with. it lets you wear your heart on your sleeve, and embrace aspects of yourself that you have trouble accepting. you can be beautiful, despite everything. you can be beautiful despite having traits that you've felt so insecure about for the longest time, whether it be skin color, hair type, face shape, cultural significances; none of that makes you any lesser, regardless of what you may feel or what others may have told you. my own race has tied into many of my experiences with my self-image, and my struggle with that view is part of why i identify with the menhera subculture. for anyone reading this who feels similarly, this is sort of my way of saying that you aren't alone!

i feel that, although the medical association is most likely here to stay, the majority of the menhera community can also work beyond only acknowledging certain facets of mental illness. this isn't only referring to the acknowledgment of racial issues, but other intersecting traits that affect people's experiences with mental illness. gender, class, physical disability, orientation; all of these undoubtedly influence each individual's views on mental health, and the community should strive to be more open towards all of these different experiences no matter how messy or uncomfortable they get. after all, the purpose of menhera is to tell ourselves that we're pretty, cute, handsome, gorgeous, and all of those kinds of adjectives despite how our troubles make us feel!

#rise and shine #menhera #yamikawaii #yumekawaii #メンヘラ #mental health

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tmntxthings · 11 months

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一∑ In The Sky・゜・。

author’s note: it’s been so long i legit had to think about how to bold words… oof, hello hello, tis i to drop off a song inspired drabble and then disappear back into the depths of.. wherever i came from? xD

song inspired: Castle in the Sky by eaJ

word association: self-deprecation, infatuation, ‘out-of-my-league’, reaffirmation, one-sided love, overthinking, obsessive

warnings: like one curse word, slight yandere thoughts, unedited

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It was moments like these. Where he looked up and just knew some things would never change.

Donatello saw cement. He smelled sewage. Though he had major improvements in that department where it mattered, it was still here. It was still everywhere but his home. He was sure he could solve this problem easily. Just send his creations out further than their targeted perimeters. But that wouldn’t happen.

The smell warded off most unwanted guests and attention. It would stay as it always has been. It would smell of filth and garbage and worse things.

Donnie blinked as his wrist vibrated. Ah yes. You were on your way. It was raining. He knew that and yet he couldn’t move a muscle to meet you out further than where he was. Maybe it was because he thought you might change your mind.

What if you decided you didn’t want to visit the monster in the sewers? What if you decided it wasn’t worth your time. Because truthfully Donnie didn’t think he deserved your time nor attention.

And yet you still gave it to him. More than just those things though. You gave him hope. Which was a dangerous thing.

See you, you lived up there. Past the cement. You lived with the sky. And every time you dropped to his level. Every time you lowered yourself to be with him, in his terrain, trapped under cement and with currents of muck. Donnie felt a multitude of things. He questioned more.

Were you lonely up there? Was that why you descended? Was his company even enough to ease that loneliness? He couldn’t tell.

Why did you stay? Longer each time in fact and he was worried one day you would fall asleep down here. You didn’t belong hidden beneath cold stone. You were the sun. You belonged up there. In the clouds, in the sky.

He felt like he had become the gravity. Like he dragged you down into the depths of darkness with him. It was conflicting. He hated himself sometimes. And to make it worse he couldn’t stop but spilling everything on his mind with you. He made you promise practically every meeting that you wanted to be there. That you wanted to be with him. That he wasn’t being too much.

It took lots of reassuring and he still couldn’t believe it. That someone like you could find him something other than miserable. You called him smart. You called him charming. You called him funny. Donatello warmed at those words but in the back of his mind he didn’t think he deserved them.

His wrist vibrated once more and he shook his head clearing all thoughts. The manhole cover lifted and directly above him, there you were. Peering down, rain falling down around you and from the strands of your wet hair. You squinted for a moment before your eyes adjusted and found him.

It was like timed slowed as he watched that smile of yours spread. Beaming of happiness, directly towards him. The sun. Shining down on him as you called out his name. Donnie swallowed, wishing for the millionth time that he could live in the sky too. Things would be different. He wouldn’t feel this way. Like he wasn’t easy to be around. Like he caused you discomfort and pain. Like he was holding his breath waiting to wake up from this dream.

And yet you descended, joining him.

Donnie thought that he needed to be careful. Lest he get addicted. Lest he get entitled. Heaven forbid he start to believe that someone as holy as you were meant to be with him. Like it was some sort of fucked up destiny.

Your feet landed on the pavement. Your arms went around his middle. And he bent forward, head nuzzling into your hair and trying to memorize the way you smelled. Like rain and perfume and something sweet.

Oh how he wished for more. Wished to be more. Wished to be similar. Wished like hell to be yours and for you to be his and things to be different and it made him hold you tighter. One of these days he wouldn’t be able to let go.

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omegalomania · 1 year

Text

okay, couple things i haven't seen people comment on yet! bolded emphasis is mine and is not present in the original text.

Buzzed off of the alpenglow.

so "alpenglow" is a specific phenomenon when the setting sun lights up the horizon in deep rose hues and soft shadows. as you can see on the article images, this can often result in pink and purple visuals.

You never think you’d look back and be nostalgic for right now - For car rides that never seemed to end, the way the world used to look in 90s newscasts, or cloroxing your groceries before you bring them in from the garage…. To all the animals you see in the clouds and the faces you memorized in the tile of the shower in your childhood home- the pareidolla-n prince.

themes of nostalgia vs. reality are definitely present in all the teasing they've done for this album thus far. "field of dreams" addresses it directly. "dark city" is about memories of a place that never existed (the beach was never real). the bit in "reality bites" about the pink seashell addresses how we assign meaning to things that ultimately don't mean very much at all.

all of that also ties into the overall idea of searching out codes and meaning in things that might not have anything of the sort. more on that later.

Placing items in my cart and continuing shopping- but emotionally. You start to wonder if you have more good road being you than ahead. Shake it off. [...] Still trying to get free of everything we��re supposed to be.

this doesn't have any special meaning or context i just like the message. maybe just being your own silly weird self is worth more than looking ahead. when they made you they broke the mold. don't let expectation pigeonhole you in. just makes me fond!

Sometimes I feel like detective working a bad beat for too many years, chasing old leads- not ready to quit but unable to solve the case- just hoping I get more than a gold watch on my retirement day

[...]

PS (thanks for always sticking around. Thanks for working the beat. Spoiler alert: we got more than a gold watch coming for you next year).

this is the part that gets to me. this is an explicit comparison between US and the detective. sometimes pete feels like the detective...but at the postscript, the comparison is made explicit. we're the detectives, to him. we've been chasing leads - websites, postcards, whatever scraps we can find. we've been working the bad beat, and all the while they've been cooking up something special for us, and now that's about to pay off.

i will say for my part...i don't think there's any secret code here. the weird formatting, the punctuation, the inconsistent capitalization - aside from the wink-wink nudging at us ("pareidolia" refers to the inclination to look for patterns where none exist) - frankly, this is just how pete types! a lot of his old blogs and livejournals were peppered with grammar errors and misspelled words, because that's just how he wrote them out. and it takes me back some...there's that nostalgia again. how about that?

#fall out boy #fob #fob8 #*making poasts #its wild how with a couple paragraphs of writing pete can make me feel all warm and cozy against a blizzard #just got that way with words you know

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agentrouka-blog · 8 months

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So I'm re-reading the series, trying to look at characters and plots in different ways and look for symbolism. I am doubtful of Dany, not full anti rn but wary. Do you think she could do good? Or is she doomed, always planned to be a dark/villain that used to be a naive child?

Dany was always meant to be a villain in the end.

This is in no way diminished by the fact that she started out as a helpless victim in a horrific situation. These circumstances inform her arc, they are part of what sets her on this path. But being a victim is not a qualification for goodness, it does not make people stronger or better. Suffering makes us weaker and worse. It is kindness and compassion that make us strong and that help us grow and heal.

Dany barely got any of that in her life. The things she does directly relate to that, to the poisonous way she was raised. She is a tragedy.

We are not meant to hate her. (I strongly dislike her, but that's my personal taste.) She is a figure to be pitied, even as we slowly discover her to be a monster shedding its veneer.

She wants to be happy, she wants to be a force of good. But she has no real concept of what that actually is because she was raised to view herself as inherently separate from other human beings, as a superior Targaryen catergory of her own, and being raised on the run with only Viserys her brother-king, she never had a chance to understand what connection and community actually are. But we need these things to properly function, they are the basis of survival, peace and justice.

Dany could hear the singing of the red priests as they lit their night fires and the shouts of ragged children playing games beyond the walls of the estate. For a moment she wished she could be out there with them, barefoot and breathless and dressed in tatters, with no past and no future and no feast to attend at Khal Drogo's manse. (AGOT, Daenerys I)

It is tragic when she believes her actions to be good and helpful, when they are often at least partly horrific, and she cannot see past her intentions and her own point of view. She is blind to her own hypocrisy. And it keeps getting worse instead of better because her inevitable failures meet "if I look back I am lost". Once she starts to truly question herself, she slips into an existential crisis that she quickly shuts down. The blood of the dragon does not weep. Her self-worth is too tied up in her dragon identity and the goal of reconquest - inevitable war, inevitable destruction, inevitable recreations of her past failures. She cannot let go of that goal, so she can never be free, and she can never be good.

#anti daenerys targaryen #tragic villain

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vasito-de-leche · 8 months

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;NSR DJSS - General Headcanons

Compilation of headcanons and analysis about DJ Subatomic Supernova and other related things.

I got an ask asking for DJSS' love languages (don't worry! working on it!) but then it hit me that I don't think enough about DJSS to talk about love languages right away, so I'm getting this out of my system to try and fleshen out the way I write him!

this might be, a BIT TOO LONG BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY RIGHT FROM THE START BC EVE WAS INVOLVED AND I LOVE HER

The most healthy and solid friendship DJSS has is with Eve.

Eve's post is still fresh on my mind, so it got me thinking about how DJSS and Eve are very similar - like, two sides of the same coin, or two opposites in the same spectrum. But before I get carried away, let's talk about DJSS.

Out of all megastars within NSR, DJSS is very clearly the one with the least amount of connections to other characters, at least in the way he's presented in-game. Like, all of them are connected to NSR and Tatiana because they work for her, that's obvious - but the Sayu Gang have each other, Yinu has her parents, Neon J has 1010, Eve and DK West both have Zuke and Tatiana/NSR respectively. Tatiana has Kliff, the Goolings and Mayday.

DJSS is just. There?

Maybe it's because he's the tutorial boss, but very similarly to Eve, themes of loneliness and not being appreciated enough or understood are prominent in his background. The casettes literally show him spiraling from an underappreciated but very passionate teacher to a very influential but egocentric megastar.

There's just something about how DJSS and Eve share loneliness as a theme. And how both of them also fully embody their work, becoming a personification of their craft and passions so that their self-worth and identity is DIRECTLY tied to how said passions are received and perceived. To others, music and art are simply an extension of themselves, an important part of their lives, not the whole of it. But DJSS and Eve? You can't separate them from their work. Again, the Sayu Gang are a bunch of teens bonding over a shared interest. Yinu is a megastar BECAUSE of her family, not by CHOICE, she plays the piano FOR her deceased father. Neon J is, first and foremost, a war veteran and protector of Vinyl City before he is a musician, even if dancing and music are his passions.

There is also something to be said about how their respective journeys are opposites of each other yet end the same way. They've gotten what they've wanted, but they're stagnant and unfulfilled.

We see DJSS starting as a starry-eyed teacher, thanking the THREE students AND A JANITOR who came to his lessons because he's grateful for anyone who will listen to him. He's using his passion and work to teach others and expand their minds and whatever other cool one-liners he says in his videos and cutscenes. This directly mirrors Eve, who starts as a self-loathing, deeply insecure artist who uses art as a way to cope and vent. (If you read my Eve post, throwback to the duality theme - outside and inside. DJSS is channeling his work to the world, to the outside. He's looking for people who understand him. Nadia is channeling her work to herself, to the inside. She's looking to understand herself.)

The middle part of their whole journey shows a moment of introspection and healing for both of them.

DJSS reconnects with his love for music and the reason he even became a teacher in the first place - not out of love for teaching (which is another point I wanna talk about later in this post) but for a genuine love and intrigue for the universe. After years of trying to get anyone to listen, he finally remembers how it feels to look up at the sky. He finds a way to merge both music and space as a means to further his goal.

Eve heals because she believes she's found someone who can complete her, someone who isn't herself but who can understand and see her just as good. She doesn't hide her pink side, she doesn't hide her face with her hair, she is shown to be very, very lively, excited and intense. This is the moment she realizes she can be understood and loved, all the things she saw as impossible before meeting Zuke. Her art reflects this, she can now focus on something other than hating herself.

(It's very important to me that we remember her heart piece with Zuke is made out of recycled bottles. Both DJSS and Eve were shown to have this thing for helping others - DJSS through teaching and Eve through art.)

And then, their last collectible shows them at their worst.

DJSS has finally managed to be influential enough to have thousands of people actually pay attention to what he's saying. And he explicitly says that, even though he's gotten this far, he feels empty. And he feels empty because all of his work will disappear, because he will be forgotten in a few generations. And we see how music has replaced his love for the universe, it's a subtle shift in which DJSS goes from wanting to learn and teach others about something he's deeply passionate about from wanting his music and hard work to live on forever through space.

There's a metaphor somewhere in there about DJSS' legacy being not his work as a teacher, astrophycisist or even a pillar of the EDM movement - but a few of his songs. Attached to an NSR satellite. Going through the empty void of space.

And then there's Nadia, all alone again. Because she's gotten so comfortable with the idea of being understood, that she expected Zuke to see everything the same way she did, and therefore setting his hair on fire wouldn't be that big of an issue. And this is her worst fear, but it doesn't hurt as much as she thought it would - because she's expected this to happen at some point, even when she was at her happiest with Zuke.

I want to draw a line between this moment and the way their loneliness permeates in their words and actions - DJSS who has tried for years to reach out to like-minded people, finally has an audience that respects him, he still feels unfulfilled and empty. And he further distances himself from everything by setting his sights and his legacy on THE COLD VACUUM OF SPACE. Eve, who has always believed she would end up alone, IS NOW ALONE AND ABANDONED (from her perspective anyways, since it would be unfair to say Zuke was a horrible monster for leaving a relationship this complex) and yet she doubles down on finding someone like her.

DJSS states that no one is able to think like him, no one within NSR shares his ambition nor vision - he's resigned. Eve states that she will bring everyone to her level one way or another - she's desperate. Two sides of the same coin. Two extreme opposites in the same spectrum.

It all boils down to believing that somewhere out there, whether in Vinyl City or the universe, there's someone who can really appreciate them.

The two conceal a sense of inferiority, the difference being that Eve's comes from a place of pure, genuine hatred for herself (if her work can't be understood, she can't be understood. if her work can't be appreciated, she can't be appreciated) and DJSS' comes from a place of blind confidence in his own potential and ideas (if his work cannot be understood, it's because no one has the ability to understand it. if his work cannot be appreciated, it's because no one is sensible enough to appreciate it).

There is also something about how, at their worst and/or when they feel threatened, they seem to switch?

This is most notable in Eve's boss fight, in which she acts condescending and dismissive to both Mayday and Zuke - saying all the things she knows will hurt just for the sake of hurting Zuke. She establishes her superiority over those who can't understand her, similar to how DJSS treats B2J initially. And in DJSS' case, hints of this reversal can be heard in his casettes, already explained above. He somewhat resembles Eve during her final section, a resigned and numb acceptance to being alone.

I think these two would be friends because they would be able to recognize their similarities - not openly address them, mind you, that's too much for either of them to handle - but enough to just chill with each other. There is an underlying feeling of understanding between them, even if all they do is hang out to do superficial things, gossip or rant about work.

And I like to think they're both fine with this arrangement, because sometimes people need relationships that aren't mentally or emotionally exhausting or intense! Sometimes you just need a buddy who shares a similar trauma that neither of you will address and who wants to go bitch about Stacy from HR! It's an unlikely friendship that surprises everyone, but once they stop to think about it, it just makes sense for them to click - at least with the façades they present to the world.

No matter how hard he tries to rebrand, DJSS knows that he'll always be a teacher at heart. Not necessarily a good one, but a teacher anyway.

TOOK ME FUCKING YEARS TO GET TO THIS POINT BUT ANYWAY.

I really like that one post I saw through the NSR tag about how DJSS makes sense as the tutorial boss because he used to be a teacher, we can assume that there was a time in his life where he loved to teach and shape the minds of the future generations. It's a little meta connection that makes sense to me!

And I like to think that this is something that DJSS can't ever get rid of - the need to just teach. It can come across as DJSS not being able to shut his mouth when it comes to telling people why they're wrong and why he's right, but at the end of the day, he's still trying to clarify misconceptions and teach others new things. It just happens through layers and layers of his condescending attitude.

Of course, this also doesn't apply to just teaching, it applies to learning as well.

DJSS strikes me as someone curious and very driven, instead of asking others why, he sets out to find out answers himself - either because it's easier and faster, because he has something to prove, because of he's so full of autism and hyperfixates easily or whatever other reasoning you like the most.

I like the idea of a DJSS who knows his worth and knows he shouldn't bother trying to argue with people who clearly don't care about facts, logic and research, let alone putting the effort to learn or have an open mind - those simpletons who aren't worth his time - but still struggles with keeping his mouth shut.

During his boss fight, he immediately dismisses B2J because they're small fry, they're not even here for him, they're here for inconsequential reasons that he doesn't have time for. Why should he even entertain them? AND THEN HE DOES. HE GETS RILED UP AND JUST GOES ON TO TALK ABOUT HIS ENDEAVORS AND GOALS ANYWAY.

He REALLY reads as a guy who makes the funniest of jokes and can't help but explain them anyway - and he gets away with it most of the time.

Very organized, detail-oriented person, loves routine and to plan things beforehand. DJSS cannot stand spontaneous decisions and has a hard time adapting to sudden changes.

Sometimes it might be easy to forget that DJSS is most likely the smartest member of NSR as a whole, specifically because of the way he acts and presents himself typically - even if he makes a point of constantly reminding others of his intellect and academic achievements. But! Nothing escapes DJSS' keen vision.

Out of other members of NSR, Tatiana trusts DJSS the most to keep up with his responsibilities as charter and many other projects benefitial for the company, like the rocket launch! He's proven time and time again that he's more than competent to be left to his own devices. Even if he doesn't care much for the other megastars, he still shows up on time for meetings and speaks his mind on things that need addressing (that he considers worth addressing, at least), never pulling his punches when offering his opinion.

Literally that kind of annoying coworker that loves to nitpick and someone you don't get along with but who makes the best points and arguments ever.

I like to think this is reflected in his position in Vinyl City - he's the furthest away from the NSR Tower, because he requires little to no supersion at all. He's also closest to the heart of Vinyl City: Festival Plaza and the Grand Qwasa, maybe because he can absolutely take care of any problems that might arise with it.

Even if he's extremely dismissive, DJSS does remember the people he works with - mostly based on their skills and how useful they are, just so he can know who to send away and who to keep around. He doesn't remember your name, but he remembers that you're competent enough to do a quick check on his turntables or other equipment. That sort of thing.

DJSS likes when things go his way, the way he expects things to be, the way he planned them out to be. He thinks of every possible outcome and prepares for it, without going overboard as to hinder his progress. So he can live with someone on his team messing up the rocket launch procedure - because that was already something he expected that would happen, even if he throws a little fit about it. But he can't deal with suddenly being told that someone else will handle the rocket launch entirely - because that's just not a possibility in his mind.

I can see DJSS being a fan of to-do lists or spreadsheets to stay on top of his game. He doesn't need them, he remembers everything he needs to, but hey, it's a fun flex!

I also just remembered one of the interactable things in Cast Tech - a drone that Zuke comments on, saying:

"It must have crashed from all the conflicting signals. DJ Subatomic Supernova really likes the idea of blasting his signal into space..."

Which makes me think that yes, DJSS is great at solving things, he's careful and meticulous, doing anything to ensure his success in whatever he sets out to do - but his tunnel vision makes him careless enough to overlook some of the most obvious things in the world. Like how blasting his own signal might disrupt every other drone in the city or mess with other machines.

And this whole point is totally not me subtly trying to write DJSS in a way that compliments the way I perceive Neon J because I think the ship is fun and their dynamic is even funnier, absoluTELY NOT LETS MOVE ON

Cast Tech is the most academic district in Vinyl City. Basically paradise for nerds.

The same way Eve supports the arts in Dream Fever by having a lot of galleries and art studios, it makes sense that DJSS would support academic endeavors by having schools and other academic institutions, funding people's research and etc. It's another little thing that ties in with his background as a teacher.

In-game, Cast Tech is basically a short main road with two or three paths that lead to small areas. It's very lackluster compared to the rest of districts and I blame that on the way the game is structured, showing the boss first and then the district - plus the fact that DJSS is the tutorial boss so by proxy, he gets less content. But it's serviceable enough for the main plot in the game, which is to show us that NSR can be superficial, shallow and careless company.

And I'd like to argue that, maybe, the area Mayday and Zuke go through within Cast Tech, is not meant to be representative of the entire district. It feels more like an area meant for tourists or general NSR propaganda that ended up flopping massively because people weren't that interested?

DJSS is a megastar, sure, but he's not shown being that much of a public figure outside of advertisement. Compare him to any other member - Sayu and 1010's popularity rely on their fanbase, because they're public figures. Eve is an artist, we also see her dabble in all types of art, not just music, even fashion! Yinu is a literal child, but she's still in advertisements for healthy food and drinks.

Did you notice how Cast Tech and Club Planetarium are the only places that lack NPCs? Unique NPCs to be more exact, like Celine in Dream Fever, Mia in Festival Plaza, Yiruk in Metro Division, etc. People who most likely live there?

Once again, DJSS is an outlier. It makes sense to me that, even though this area has a statue of him and a store selling products based on him, literally just revolving around him, playing his advertisements and etc it's not... That important overall within his district. Even the Planetarium where he hosts concerts has a bunch of small stores outside, nothing grand. Even though it's HIS district, he's NOT the focus, ironically.

I would love to get into details about how the actual district works and what goes around, but I dropped out of my bachelor's degree and I don't know enough about science to get super in-depth about it! So anyone who DOES know or wants to develop this more, feel free!

#nsr #no straight roads #nsr djss #nsr headcanons #dj subatomic supernova #is this post anything guys #its like FOUR bullet points #i was also thinking. DJSS feels like a guy who would. in fact. dissociate #a lot #not in that “haha oops. got lost there” way but. actually dissociate. guy doesnt feel here nor real. struggles to stay in the moment #but masks it well enough

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gendercriticalthinking · 14 days

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hi, agender non-binary person here interested in gender critical feminism! i was wondering what your take was on people being uncomfortable with certain pronouns (he/him, she/her).

how do you feel about they/them pronouns, or neopronouns?

Hello there! I apologize so much for not answering your ask in a timely manner!! Responding to people on social media still makes me a bit anxious and stressed so I usually ignore my notifs even though I really shouldn't haha

Thank you for your question, and for being open to listening to gender critical people!!! It's an important and admirable quality to have, and especially worth praising when you and others have outright been told to not interact with gc people/radfems at any cost! So yes, thank you for that! :)

As for your question (which is a good one!) I originally wrote this very long rambly reply and saved it to my drafts hoping to make it coherent one day. But then recently something happened that made me realize something about human nature in general that directly ties into how gender identities and discomfort/enjoyment of certain pronouns came about:

My brother has always loved nature, especially animals. The reason his favorite color is green is because it's the color of plants: trees, jungles, the places animals live and eat and get to be free in. He's so obsessed with green that seeing something green, anything green, compels him to go " :O !!!! Green!!!"

Because he loves nature and animals so much, he's also a vegetarian. And not just in a "eating animals is bad for the environment" way, but a "it disturbs me on a visceral level to see, smell, or be near meat" way. I have to clean up my bowls and plates that I eat meals that have meat on (I mean, I'd do it anyway because you should pick up after yourself but you get what I mean) because the thought of touching a utensil that once came into contact with meat, even if I ate that meat and it's gone now, carnally disgusts him.

He loves animals, and he wants pets. He'd never ever malnourish a pet just because he has a problem with meat, but it'd be a real emotional challenge for him to feed a carnivore wet meaty food and/or live prey every day. (The token family dog was always fed by our parents or me; he'd be okay if our dog liked dry food but he doesn't lol.)

So I researched the options out there for herbivorous pets, and I found a couple species of lizards (he loves lizards in particular, partially because they're often... green) that eat an exclusively plant-based diet! I showed them to him and he was definitely on board... but alongside the herbivores we found a species of lizard that's a bright, vibrant green and makes a great pet, but they need to eat (preferably live) insects.

He's over the moon about the green insectivore lizards. Once he learned they existed it was over for him. They're all he wants, he's 100% sure. And it's for a lot of other reasons besides the fact that they're green, but... they're green. There are no herbivorous green lizards that make good/easy-to-care-for pets. On some level, he cares more about the green-ness than the vegetarianism.

Why is that?

It's because humans are obsessed with creating symbols to represent ideas. So much so that they often get more attached to the symbol itself than the thing it's supposed to be a reminder of. It's like a self-made Cloth Mother that's built to look like the Wire Mother, but comes with none of the substance or nourishment.

Green represents nature and animals coexisting peacefully to my brother. The emotion the color green instills in him as it reminds him of the things he loves is so powerful it surpasses his enjoyment of the literal thing that the color represents to him.

I'm just using him as an example, but everyone does this. Your favorite childhood shows make you happy because they're nostalgic and reminds you of being a kid first and foremost. They can be well-written and artistic and enjoyable underneath that feeling, but the simpler time they mentally take you back to is what you love about them. Your favorite characters, the "he's just like me fr" ones you read fanfic of, are ones that remind you of yourself and/or ones that you're attracted to. They can also be fun to analyze and have interesting personalities and be great meme fodder, but at the end of the day they represent something to you beyond their objective qualities.

So. If we live in a world where women are treated as lesser to men, not fully human, accessories to the actual thinkers, and we use "she/her" to refer to women, is it possible your hatred of hearing those pronouns is because they represent the idea that the person saying them to you sees you as inferior, vapid, incomplex?

If you're in a community where being a female who goes by "they/them" or "it/its" or "he/they" means you get to be who you want to be, who you truly are, enjoying everything life has to offer instead of being restricted to a role someone else made up for you, why wouldn't you like to be called something other than "she"?

When the majority of people who go by "she/her" in your spaces are amab people who constantly, vocally fetishize and dehumanize people with your biological body type (with a few afab people who don't seem to act like you or share your interests sprinkled in) why would anyone as smart and complex and kind to yourself as you ever like being called "she"?

Do you have an innate discomfort with certain pronouns because of dysphoria, or do you hate what the sound of them represents, reminds you of, that they're telling you what other people think of you? Do you enjoy being called certain pronouns because of euphoria, or do you like what the sound of them represents, reminds you of, that they're telling you the people who use them must listen to you and care what you think and support you being who you are?

What's my take on pronouns? They're symbols that represent the type of person you are and want to be. They mean something important. They tell a lot about a person. They're not something to play around with and try out for fun like they're clothes. They're not something you can make up out of thin air and pretend they have no connotations attached to them other than an Aesthetic TM you like.

Nor are they an escape from the problems of the world: the baggage comes with them, I'm afraid. It's a lot easier to change your bio and Discord server role than to change people's minds, especially ones belonging to those who hate you. That doesn't mean it's better or it works, just because it's feasible for you to do.

Whenever you feel a certain way about hearing "she," know that countless other women feel the same way as you. And know that leaving "she/her" behind doesn't mean you've found a cheat code out of being victimized and belittled, you've only left women like you behind instead.

#ask #misogyny #gender critical #radfems please interact #radfems please touch #lgbt #lgbtq community #lgbtq #gender #gender identity #trans #non binary #queer #transgender #agender #i said my old draft was too long and yet i go and write this instead lmao #and this ask was from so long ago i don't even know #i'm sorry anon. i hope you never stopped being curious and asking questions.

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twistedtummies2 · 3 months

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Year of the Bat - Number 16

Welcome to Year of the Bat! In honor of Kevin Conroy, Arleen Sorkin, and Richard Moll, I’m counting down my Top 31 Favorite Episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series” throughout this January. We’ve reached the halfway point of the countdown! TODAY’S EPISODE QUOTE: “Fear’s a prison, you see, and I’ve just broken out!” Number 16 is…Never Fear.

Out of all the Scarecrow’s appearances in B:TAS, this episode from the TNBA era is generally considered to be the best. It’s one of several stories taken directly from the comics, too, as the episode is (somewhat loosely) based on the comic tale “Fear For Sale.” The original comic was published in 1987, and was chiefly created by writer Mike W. Barr, and artist Alan Davis. While that story is really, REALLY freaking good – seriously, one of the Top 5 best Scarecrow comics, in my opinion, without question – I honestly think the Animated Series adaptation is even better. Not only that, but in some ways – despite the fact no one actually dies in this story (though several come awfully close) – I would argue the cartoon is darker than said comic, as well. Wrap your head around that! The premise focuses on the Scarecrow returning to Gotham City, presumably after a long dormancy, with a brand new form of his Fear Toxin: instead of the usual method of installing fear in people, causing them to hallucinate violent apparitions and have horrifying visions of their greatest phobias and traumas, this new gimmick TAKES AWAY people’s fear. Now, one may wonder, why is that such a bad thing? Well, here’s the thing: fear is a rational human response, intended to keep us out of danger. We run away from things that scare us, or stay alert for trouble in times of distress, for self-preservation’s sake; we avoid doing certain things at least partially because fear reminds us of the consequences of those actions. If you REMOVE fear…then a person has no restraints, no cares, and quite possibly no conscience. This is where things get interesting: while going undercover to try and figure out Scarecrow’s plans, Bruce gets a dose of the Anti-Fear Toxin himself. Batman becomes impulsive, thrillseeking…and, most alarming of all, homicidal. It’s therefore up to Robin to keep Batman from going down a path he must not travel, while also trying to stop the Scarecrow’s newest bid for power. The first thing most people talk about with this episode is Scarecrow himself, and for good reason. The character is given a brand new voice, provided by Jeffrey Combs for this outing, as well as a brand new look, which most people agree is far superior to the one from the first three seasons. While the Scarecrow is great in those earlier seasons, I do agree with the apparent majority that the version found in “Never Fear” is a superior rendition, simply because he’s much more creepy to behold and to hear. I was never really scared of the Scarecrow himself in his earlier outings, but this version is a whole new story. The uniqueness of his plan in this story is also worth commending, whether it’s based on an already-published comic or not. However, I think a lot of people underestimate what a good episode this is for Batman and Robin, as well. I may or may not have said this in an earlier entry, but I actually preferred Tim Drake as Robin over Dick Grayson, at least in the Animated Series. This episode is a great example of why. Robin really takes the spotlight and initiative here, as it’s ultimately really Tim that saves the day. There’s this great scene that I absolutely love, where Batman – under the influence of Scarecrow’s toxin – tries to convince Tim, after Robin ties him up to keep him from hurting people or running into trouble, to let him go. Kevin Conroy’s performance is so convincing, it almost tricks the viewer, as well as Robin himself, but Tim doesn’t take the bait. The two really do feel like partners here, in a lot of ways, and it’s a great tale for both. Whether you love it for the heroes or the villain, “Never Fear” is arguably the pinnacle of Scarecrow storytelling in the Animated Series. I say “arguably” because of one other episode I’ll get to later in the countdown…but that’s another story.

Tomorrow we move into the Top 15! Hint: “Kids these days. No respect.”

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